Martyn Ware N.I.C.

Rare Vintage Synthesizers

$109

A true pioneer and founding member of trailblazing acts The Human League and Heaven 17 creates and produces an exclusive selection of classic analogue synth and drum sounds from his collection of rarefied electronic delights. Synths include Roland System 100, Jupiter 8 and Korg 700 with warped versions produced by award winning composers and producers.

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Overview

With over 270 delectable presets, some with up to 5 distinctly different mixable signal paths this library is broad selection of synth and drums sounds that chart the very beginnings of UK electronica and synthesizer pop which were to influence heavily the burgeoning "electro" subset of the NY hip hop scene led by the likes of Afrika Bambaataa in the late seventies and early eighties. With a huge selection of pads, leads, pops, drums, fx, amazing tempo locked sequences and curios designed by hand, by the man himself plus a comprehensive selection of warped versions, sound designed by top award winning composers and producers. All presented in "super mono" to give you a selection of channels processed via vintage class-a analogue outboard processing.

Background

Martyn Ware has been an essential and avid contributor to electro-pop music since the late 1970’s, and is partly responsible for such hit records as ‘Being Boiled’ and ‘Temptation’. As well as being a founding member of British Electric Foundation, The Human League and Heaven 17. Martyn has worked with a myriad of talent including Tina Turner, Chaka Khan, Erasure, Marc Almond, Mavis Stapes and Terence Trent D’Arby. As a record producer and artist, Martyn has featured on recordings totalling over 50 million sales worldwide. In 2001, Martyn joined forces with Vince Clarke to found Illustrious Company, and together they continue to combine their unique three-dimensional sound technology to collaborate with an array of artists, corporate clients and clientele within the performing arts industry.

Although a proud Sheffield native, Martyn now lives and works in London, and can be found acting as Visiting Professor for Queen Mary College at the University of London when not working away in his studio based, like us, at Tileyard.

We're delighted that Martyn has agreed to create a totally bespoke selection of composer and producer tools from a mind that has created so much innovation and sonic ingenuity.

Features

The Roland System 100 is often said to be the last great synth with the last great pair of oscillators. Hand made only a few units were sold so they're incredibly hard to come by. This particular unit was gifted to Martyn by Vince Clarke in return for services rendered producing an Erasure album. It plays host to Martyn's staggering programming prowess and allows us to revisit all those great Human League and Heaven 17 sounds. Alongside, synths, leads, pops, and basses are some great sequences which are worth the price of admission alone!

Here we enjoy hearing how Martyn's techniques evolved alongside growing feature-sets of later incarnations of Roland keyboards. An anthology of classic custom sounds made by the master!

Martyn has also plumbed his old faithful for some great drum sounds and curiosities. The Korg 700 has a sound all of it's very own and casts our mind back to the dawning of a new age for pop in the UK.

In addition to these wonderful "originals" from Martyn the award winning Spitfire team has been at it again morphing and mangling the sounds to create haunting, biting and enormous new creations inspired by Martyn's work. Giving you a truly inspiring and comprehensive set of synthesizer tools.

All the synthesizers sampled within N.I.C. are monophonic. But we have taken pains to duplicate this mono signal and send through a number of different interesting signal chains using Class-A vintage outboard processing:

M - Mic - Direct and close from the System 100 speakers.
A - Amped - Into a fine Marshall amplifier so it just "sits".
Ch - Chorus - We had a Roland Dimension D shipped from Japan just for this library! We feel it's the best way to stereoficate an analogue synth!
Sp - Spring - A Reverb return from a vintage Telefunken Spring unit.
DI - Direct Inject - Recorded via the finest NEVE line amps direct from the output of the keyboard. Every instrument loads with this activated in the first instance.

* Some of the warped presets are delivered in a single Stereo iteration with a second mic designed for surround use.

GUIs

Mercury Synth

The mercury synth is the front end for all of our steam punked, sound designed and warped section of any library. It is an ingenious user interface that allows you to have instant fun without having to roll up your sleeves and go under the Kontakt hood. All of the controls are assignable to your control surface giving you the immediate ability to make our sounds your own.